


All I Needed to Hear (Was the Sound of Your Voice)

by todxrxki



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, a very whipped kuroo, kuroo falls in love with kenma before he even meets him, kuroo hears a voice in his head, mentions of mental illness and auditory hallucinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28112793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todxrxki/pseuds/todxrxki
Summary: Kuroo is eight years old when he hears the voice for the first time.It’s warm and soft as it sings, like honey to his young ears. He doesn’t know the song, but finds himself tapping along anyways, his tiny hands moving over his thighs.However, his father is not pleased when Kuroo tells him of this. / In which Kuroo can hear the voice of his soulmate singing in his head, but no one else can.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 13
Kudos: 202
Collections: Kuroken Christmas Exchange 2020





	All I Needed to Hear (Was the Sound of Your Voice)

Kuroo is eight years old when he hears the voice for the first time. 

It’s warm and soft as it sings, like honey to his young ears. He doesn’t know the song, but finds himself tapping along anyways, his tiny hands moving over his thighs. When his father gets home later that night, Kuroo looks up at him with big eyes. “I heard a voice in my head today,” he says eagerly. “It was pretty.”

“Y-you what?!” his father stammers, looking disturbed. “Tetsu, what voice? You were home alone.” 

“A voice,” Kuroo says, because he really doesn’t have many details beyond that. “It was a kid’s voice, I think, and it was a really nice voice.”

“Did the voice tell you to do anything?” his father asks, his voice a bit strangled.

“No,” Kuroo says quickly. “It was nice, I said!”

  
“Okay,” his father says, breathing out deeply. “Let me know if you hear it again, okay?”

Kuroo does, the very next day before he’s about to fall asleep. The voice is even sweeter than Kuroo remembers, and he drifts off to sleep listening to it, a tiny smile on his face. However, his father is not pleased when Kuroo tells him of this. 

His father drags him to the doctor, a man with a stern face and grumpy disposition. Upon hearing Kuroo’s story, he frowns. “You hear voices? And no one else can hear them?”

“I don’t think they can,” Kuroo says, biting his lip, and then the beginning notes of a song start to swell in his mind, as harmonious as ever. “See, I hear it! I hear it right now! It’s a boy singing. Can’t you hear it?”

His father and the doctor exchange a glance, a glance they hold for a few minutes before the doctor gives a resigned sigh. “I know of some medication I can prescribe for the boy,” the doctor says. “No guarantee that it’ll work, but it’s worth a try, I suppose.”

“What do you mean, it’ll work? Will I stop hearing the voice? I don’t want to!” 

Both the doctor and his father ignore him. His father nods gravely. “Okay,” he says, and that night he brings home the first pill bottle. Kuroo wordlessly chokes it down.

So goes the life of Kuroo Tetsurou. He learns a lot over the next few years, but the most important skill he picks up is the art of lying. He likes the voice; even as he moves on through the next few years and is introduced to a variety of musicians, he still finds none of them compare to the soft, low-toned voice of the boy in his head. The pills don’t work, of course, but in order to keep hearing the voice in his head, Kuroo tells his first big lie.

“I don’t hear it anymore,” he says when his father asks a couple of months later, and his father looks relieved. Kuroo almost feels guilty.

Almost. 

“Good night,” he whispers to the voice in his head that night before he falls asleep, the notes of the song the boy had been singing still on his lips. He keeps it tucked away in the back of his mind, in a safe space where no one else will ever find it.

.

The voice doesn’t go away. It dwells in the corners of Kuroo’s mind as he grows up. It keeps him company when no one else will. Almost as though the voice knows what he’s going through, the voice cuts through his consciousness exactly when Kuroo needs it to. When he twists his ankle at volleyball practice and has to sit on the bench, his ankle in throbbing pain, a soothing song floats through his eardrums and helps him to regulate his breathing. When he’s participating in the 100 meter sprint at Sports Day, a more upbeat, rock-and-roll type song pops into his head, the usual soft and sweet voice tainted with an edge of anger. When his middle school volleyball team finally wins a game and, inevitably, no one is seated in the rafters to watch Kuroo, the voice sings a happy tune, as though it’s celebrating with him.

A few hours after his grandmother’s funeral, a soft, comforting song helps him to dry his tears and lull him to sleep. 

Kuroo doesn’t tell anyone about the voice, of course. His father’s reaction had been proof enough his experience with this  _ voice  _ is far from the norm. He doesn’t want to get put back on the medication that had left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. He doesn’t want people to think he’s out of his mind - because he  _ isn’t _ . It’s a lonely experience, though, keeping this all to himself. On more than one occasion he finds himself questioning his own senses. Is the voice even real, he wonders?

Sometimes he cries out to the voice. “Tell me who you are,” he demands one day during his fourteenth year as the voice rings out in his mind, loud and clear, his voice shaky. “Tell me what’s going on here.”

His head goes quiet. Kuroo bites down on his lip and muffles his head into a pillow.

But, for Kuroo, whose life is one of tumult and chaos as he moves to big-city Tokyo later in his eighth year and finds himself in a new school with none of his old friends, the voice serves as a comfort, a sense of stability. Where nothing else stays constant - not his friends, his family, his house, his pets - the voice remains. 

He just wishes he understood what the hell it meant. 

But he turns 18 and graduates from high school, and the voice just becomes more and more present. Whereas before he’d only hear it sometimes at night or in the afternoon, just a couple of times a day, now he hears it nearly constantly. It becomes harder and harder to concentrate on the things he’s meant to be doing. 

He contemplates going to a doctor to get checked out, but from his own personal research, he gets the feeling this isn’t a medical condition. Kuroo’s a skeptic - currently majoring in biology along with his more ‘practical’ major, business, and yet he can’t think of any biological explanation for what the hell is going on in his head. It doesn’t seem like a hallucination. No, it feels too  _ real. _

And even though it is interfering with his life, he doesn’t want it to go away completely. 

Two weeks into Kuroo’s second year of university, his friend Bokuto claps him on the shoulder with one of his bulky hands. “You like music, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course, man,” Kuroo says, gritting his teeth as the music starts up in his head again. It’s the truth. He’s always been a fan of music.

It’s just becoming harder to get a chance to listen to other music when the voice in his head is near constantly singing to its own tune. 

“Great!” Bokuto chirps. “Okay, second question! Are you busy tomorrow night?”

Kuroo narrows his eyebrows in suspicion, but shakes his head anyways. “Nah. No plans yet.”

“Great!” Bokuto says. “So you know ‘Kaashi, right?” Kuroo nods - Akaashi Keiji attends their university as a Literature major and, in high school, played on Bokuto’s volleyball team as their setter. Kuroo is also under the distinct impression Bokuto is head-over-heels for the guy. He has yet to let Bokuto know, though, and he’s also pretty sure Bokuto himself has no idea. Oh, well, Kuroo thinks. Bokuto will get there one day. “So Akaashi is friends with this guy that’s the lead singer of this new band that’s playing a bar in Tokyo tomorrow night! He wants us to come along and check ‘em out. It’ll be fun! What d’you say?”

Kuroo hesitates for a second. On one hand, it might be a lot - having the voice in his head, probably, clashing with the music. It has the capacity to send Kuroo spiralling. 

On the other hand, though, he already told Bokuto he’s free and he’s a music fan. Having to explain further would just be a pain in the ass. Not that he could even really explain what the problem is, anyways: “Yeah, I keep hearing this voice in my head and I think it’d really interfere with the concert experience.” No fucking way.

So Kuroo makes up his mind and gives Bokuto a short nod. “Yeah, sure thing, I’ll be there.”

He finds himself growing more and more nervous as the next night approaches, though. His palms grow disgustingly moist as he checks the time on his phone for the hundredth time. The voice is still singing loudly in his head, sounding rough this time with a lot of pauses and a lot of restarts. Kuroo wonders what the hell is going on with it.

_ But it’s not like the voice is real, right? _

“Hey,” Bokuto chirps, darting over to Kuroo’s side. “I spotted you because of your hair, ya know that? Anyways, here’s ‘Kaashi! We’re all together now so we can head inside, huh?”

“Hello, Kuroo-san,” Akaashi says politely, though he doesn’t look all that thrilled to see Kuroo.

Kuroo just grins in response. Maybe it’s a part of having a shitty personality or whatever, but Kuroo kind of loves it when people are wary of him. Still, he gives Akaashi a warm greeting and follows Bokuto inside. 

The club is packed with people, all abuzz - speaking to each other in loud voices about how excited they are to hear the band perform and such. Kuroo looks over at Bokuto, raising an eyebrow. “Damn, man. How high profile is this friend of Akaashi’s?” 

“He’s on the rise, y’know,” Bokuto says cheerfully. “I mean, I doubt people in Miyagi or whatever have heard of him and his band, but most people in the music scene in Tokyo have. He’s really, really good though. His voice sounds almost like you’re hearing an actual angel singing!” 

The description sounds almost  _ too  _ familiar. Kuroo blinks, but he doesn’t have time to ask any more questions about who exactly this friend is before he’s yanked into the crowd by one over-enthusiastic Bokuto Koutarou. There’s a brief reprieve in Kuroo’s mind, finally - no singing, no other voices, just Kuroo, alone with his own mind. He’s about to breathe out a sigh of relief and think maybe, just maybe, he can make it through this show, when the band comes out on stage. 

Kuroo glances up at them. There’s a tall guy with silvery hair, another tall guy with hair that sticks up all over the place, a shorter guy with a cat-like face and short, dark hair, and a guy with a wide smile and a mohawk. None of them catch his attention in particular, though. They either look like every day guys on the street or the kind of guys he would expect to be in a band. 

But then, finally, his eyes land on the lead singer.

At first glance, the guy doesn’t look like anything particularly special either. He’s about average height - a lot shorter than Kuroo - and his hair is long and dark, dyed a bright yellow at the tips only, most of it tied back into a ponytail but with a few hairs drifting out and framing his face. But then he looks up, almost right at Kuroo, and Kuroo notices his eyes. 

His eyes are big and golden, catlike in their intensity. Something about his gaze is magnetic. Kuroo finds himself unable to look away.

No, actually - Kuroo finds he doesn’t  _ want  _ to look away. He swallows, his heart beating faster in his chest. The guy on stage steps up to the mic. He looks down at the ground for a few long seconds before he finally begins to speak. “Hi everyone. Thank you for coming out to our show,” and there’s something too weirdly familiar in the soft quality in his voice. “We’re really excited to be able to play in Tokyo again. Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far by purchasing our album. Copies will be available at the merch table. And…”

The guy keeps talking, but Kuroo’s head is swimming too much to process the rest of it. Because it’s starting to dawn on him exactly why the voice sounds so familiar.

And, as the guy on stage begins to sing their first song, his soft, sweet voice sweeping over the crowd, Kuroo realizes he’s hearing the song twice. Once from the microphone on the stage in front of him. 

And the other song is playing in his own mind, louder than ever before. 

Kuroo freezes. 

The song feels like it’s pounding into his skull. He can’t think, he can’t think at all, but even in this kind of a shocked stupor, it’s still completely obvious to Kuroo. The voice is exactly the same as the one that’s been in his head for over ten years now. The song is one of the songs he’s been hearing in his head for the past few years. Kuroo knows every single word.

This guy - the one with the long, dyed hair and the enchanting eyes - is the voice Kuroo has been hearing in his head. There’s no mistake about it. 

Kuroo doesn’t know how the hell to process this. He’d never really considered the possibility the voice could belong to a real, living, breathing  _ person,  _ much less one he would come into contact with, much less a gorgeous band frontman. Kuroo’s breath stutters in his lungs. He thinks he might actually suffocate. 

Whoever the guy is, he doesn’t seem to have noticed anything strange about the situation. He keeps performing, perfectly unaffected, not even one of his long hairs moving out of place as he sings into the mic. Kuroo is transfixed. 

God, what the hell is he supposed to do?   
  


He realizes his curiosity is definitely going to get the best of him. He can’t picture himself exiting the venue without at least finding out a little more about who the hell this guy is. Whoever this guy is, he’s been keeping Kuroo company for years. Kuroo at least wants to know his name and maybe, if he’s lucky, a bit of his story.

So he pushes through the incoming migraine caused by the highly increased volume of the music. He tries to make it appear as though he’s having a good time, mostly for Akaashi and Bokuto’s sakes as well as, of course, the performers, but it’s difficult. His head is throbbing. 

He just wants to understand. 

As soon as the set ends, though, so does the noise in Kuroo’s head. The very second the lead singer stops singing, Kuroo’s head goes quiet. It’s almost magical. 

Kuroo turns to Akaashi with big eyes. “You’re friends with the lead singer, right?” When Akaashi gives a suspicious nod, Kuroo pleads, “I need to speak to him right away.”

“What?” Akaashi asks. “Did you like the show that much? I mean, I am certainly aware that Kenma is a fantastic performer, but - “

“Please,” Kuroo interrupts, hoping Akaashi will sense the urgency in his tone. “It’s really, really important.”

Akaashi stares at him, as though assessing his sincerity. Finally, though, after a few minutes, Akaashi gives a slow nod. “All right, then,” he says, and Bokuto just grins, launching into some very Bokuto speech about how all his friends are becoming friends too and this is one of the best days of his life or whatever. 

When the guy spots them, he approaches Akaashi first. “Hey, Keiji,” he says, his voice a quiet murmur. “Thanks for coming. It’s good to see you.” And yep, Kuroo thinks, no mistake about it. This is definitely him.

But what does that mean? 

“Hey,” Kuroo says, stepping forward before Akaashi gets the chance to introduce him. “I need to talk to you.”

The guy’s eyebrows narrow in confusion, and he looks over at Akaashi. “Is, uh. Is this a friend of yours?”

“Something like that,” Akaashi replies. He gives Kuroo an equally confused look, and Kuroo does his best to convey an expression packed full of sincerity and pleading.  _ Please, Akaashi. I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t of the utmost importance.  _ Thankfully enough, Akaashi seems to understand, because he says, “You can trust him.”

The guy nods and then, reaching out, takes a hold of Kuroo’s wrist gently. His hand is tiny wrapped around Kuroo’s forehead, but he leaves a trail of heat wherever he touches. Once he makes it around the corner, he drops his hold on Kuroo and crosses his arms across his chest. “What is going on here?”

“What’s your name?” Kuroo blurts out before he can stop himself, and then is struck by the urge to slap himself in the face. God, he’s such an idiot.

“My name?” The guy narrows his eyebrows, his eyes getting a little bigger - as though in fear. “Aren’t you a fan? Shouldn’t you know my name?”

“Uh,” Kuroo says, and then realizes how creepy this seems. “Okay, I know I seem crazy right now. I feel pretty crazy as well. But, well. I guess there’s one way I can show you. Stay right there, okay? I’m gonna walk as far as I can in the next ten seconds. You count to ten, and then I want you to sing your name as quietly as possible. Quiet enough to where you’re sure I can’t hear it. Can you do that?” 

The guy stares at him for a moment, his gaze analytical - as though he’s trying to guess Kuroo’s motives. Kuroo’s not sure he’ll be able to even get close, though. “I guess so,” the guy says, finally, and with that, Kuroo starts to walk.

He makes it a fair distance before he hears it, clear as day in his head. “Kozume Kenma,” sang in his ever angelic tone.

So it’s true. Whatever this guy, this  _ Kenma _ , sings, Kuroo can hear. 

He gulps, turning around to walk back to Kenma, each footstep feeling like a gunshot. Once he makes it back to Kenma, he swallows again. “Hi, Kozume Kenma.”

Kenma’s face goes completely blank before he blinks. “H-how,” he stutters out, and then, “How did you hear that? Do you have enhanced hearing or something? Why have you found me? What do you want with me?”

Kuroo shakes his head quickly in some misguided attempt at reassurance. “No, it’s not like that. I…. in fact, it’s more like… I can only hear your voice. In my head. And only when I sing. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear. It’s the truth.”

Kenma looks stricken for a second, and Kuroo’s sure Kenma’s going to say he’s crazy and make a run for it. Kuroo’s sure if it were him, he’d do the exact same. It sounds too far-fetched to be true. 

But Kenma doesn’t move. Instead, he just tilts his head at Kuroo. “It does sound crazy,” he responds, his tone unchanging. “But Akaashi said that I can trust you. Also, I was quiet enough that you should’ve never heard my name otherwise, and it’s too uncommon to be just a pure guess. But Akaashi could have heard my name ahead of time…” He hesitates. “Can we try again?”

“Uh, sure,” Kuroo says, taken aback. This guy is… well, he’s certainly interesting. Different than anyone Kuroo’s ever met. Kuroo finds himself highly fascinated. He longs to know more. “Want me to walk away again?”

“Yes,” Kenma says. “I’m just going to sing a random lyric. See if you can repeat it back to me.”

Kuroo walks again until he hears the voice in his head again, just as clear as it had been before. “ _ Giddy with delight, seeing what’s to come… _ ” A lyric from an English song, one that Kuroo’s never heard before. Still, obediently, he walks back to Kenma and recites it as well as he can. Kenma’s eyes get a little bigger.

“So you really can hear me sing,” Kenma says. “When did this start?”

So Kuroo explains. He starts with how he’d first heard Kenma when he was eight, goes into the intricacies of how he’d kept up with Kuroo all these years. Kenma listens intently, nodding along, his expression somehow unchanging. Once Kuroo finishes, Kenma pauses for a second, his gaze drifting off to somewhere behind Kenma, as if he’s trying to process this. After a moment, he finally speaks. “Your story adds up,” Kenma says. “I started singing when I was 7. I’d sing myself to sleep a lot, so that’s probably why you heard me when you were trying to sleep. Sorry about that, by the way.”

“No need to be sorry,” Kuroo says. “You have a beautiful voice. Really soothing. It helped me to fall asleep.”

“Oh,” Kenma says, and he looks away quickly, but Kuroo can still see the blush staining his cheeks. He’s silent for a second before he speaks again. “Sorry. I just… it’s kind of weird to think someone else has been hearing my lullabies my whole life.” 

“You’re really talented,” Kuroo offers. 

Kenma raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t respond. Finally, he says, “How can something like this be real?”

“I don’t know,” Kuroo admits. “I told my dad about it when I was younger, but of course telling him  _ I hear some guy’s voice in my head  _ didn’t exactly go well. I got put on antipsychotics, but of course they didn’t help because, well, you’re a real person and all.” Kuroo can’t make himself tell Kenma he didn’t want to stop hearing Kenma’s voice. It seems too vulnerable, somehow. “But… yeah. They didn’t have an explanation for it. And neither do I.”

“Maybe we can both do some research,” Kenma offers. “See if we can’t figure out what the hell is going on here.” 

Kuroo nods, and he’s about to open his mouth again when a loud voice bellows out, “KENMA!” Kenma whirls around to face the person - the guy from the concert had a big mohawk, Kuroo realizes. “We’ve been looking all over for you. Kai’s wanting to talk to all of us. Some kind of post-show debrief, I dunno.”

“Ah. Tell him I’ll be there in a minute,” Kenma says. “I just need to finish this up.”

The other guy glances between Kenma and Kuroo, and Kuroo gives him a smile he hopes is reassuring. Kenma pulls a pen and slip of paper out of one of his pockets, scribbles something on the paper, and then hands it over to Kuroo. “It’s my number,” he says, because apparently Kuroo’s look of confusion is that apparent. “I’ll be in town for a few days. We can meet up and talk about this a little more in depth.”

Kuroo stares at Kenma for a second. He takes the time to process this is the guy whose voice he’s been hearing for years, the same guy who has, unknowingly, served as the only constant in Kuroo’s life.

He’s gorgeous, Kuroo thinks. The thought is unsettling. 

But then he nods and tucks the slip of paper into his pocket. “Okay,” he says, and gives Kenma a wave as Kenma follows the guy with the mohawk off, his head still feeling like it’s in a thick fog. 

When he gets back to Bokuto and Akaashi, both of them give him a weird look. “What was that about, dude?” Bokuto asks. 

“He just looked familiar,” Kuroo says, because however understanding Kenma might have been, he gets the feeling Bokuto and Akaashi won’t exactly be on the same page. “I thought I’d met him somewhere before. But it turns out I haven’t.”

.

Kuroo was never a very patient man. He texts Kenma the next day, explaining who he is so Kenma can save his number, and Kenma responds quicker than Kuroo would have anticipated.  _ we can meet tomorrow,  _ Kenma says, and attaches a location.  _ i like this bakery. 3:00 PM. don’t be late. _

It’s not like it’s a date or anything, Kuroo reminds himself. They’re meeting to discuss the weird situation they’ve found themselves in - nothing more. Still, he spends an extra few minutes in front of the mirror, deliberating which outfit to wear. He just wants to look as good as Kenma manages to without even trying. 

While he’s getting ready, he hears Kenma’s voice in his head again, but it cuts off abruptly, as if Kenma noticed he was singing, remembered Kuroo, and made himself stop. Kuroo’s chest hurts. 

But he makes it to Kenma’s proposed location on time. Kenma’s at a table with a pie in front of him already, his eyes shiny with happiness, happiness which makes Kuroo’s chest light. “Hi,” he says. “Or would you rather me sing it so you can hear it twice?”

Kuroo rolls his eyes, but his mouth tilts up. “Speaking is fine,” Kuroo says easily. “I like your normal voice too.” 

Kenma glances away, his cheeks going pink again. “Uh,” he says. It’s cute that Kuroo has the ability to fluster Kenma this much, he thinks. “Anyways. I did some research, and there are some legends out there that say some people can hear the singing of their… of their…”

Kuroo narrows his eyebrows, confused why Kenma’s finding it so hard to finish the sentence. “Of their what?”

“Their soulmate,” Kenma finishes, his face getting even redder. “But that’s it. That’s all I could find.”

_ Soulmate?!  _ Kuroo’s head spins. “Fuck,” he says, realizing he probably should respond. “You - you don’t think that could be it, do you?”

Kenma lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know,” he says, honesty dripping through his words. “I don’t know you. But I…” Kenma glances down. “God, this is really weird, so don’t judge me. Somehow it feels like I’ve known you forever.”

Kuroo nods. He understands the feeling. Maybe it’s because he’s been hearing Kenma’s voice forever, but with Kenma comes an odd sense of familiarity and comfort. Even though he’s only really  _ known  _ Kenma for a day now, it feels like he’s known Kenma for all of his life. 

“Maybe we were destined to meet,” Kuroo says. “Like, this is the universe telling us to find each other. Because… well, to be honest, if your voice hadn’t been in my head, I don’t know if I would’ve talked to you after the show. So maybe… I don’t know how I feel about the idea of soulmates, but maybe we’re supposed to be, like, important to each other.”

Kenma’s silent for a moment before he says, “Tell me about yourself, then.”

And so Kuroo does. He tells his life story - his family drama, all of his history, his passion for volleyball, his career dreams. Kenma is a great listener, Kuroo finds, something Kuroo has always valued in other people. Then Kenma talks. He talks about his family (two parents, no siblings), his band members (three loud, obnoxious people and a guy named Fukunaga who Kenma seems to be a little more fond of), his hobbies (video games, and lots of them). Kuroo has to press him a little more at times to get information out of him, but Kenma talks willingly enough, and Kuroo listens.

_ God,  _ he thinks despite himself.  _ Kenma’s really perfect, isn’t he?  _

Time passes without Kuroo being cognizant of it. He enjoys time spent with Kenma, he finds. Kenma’s easy to talk to and  _ interesting.  _ Kenma’s life is different from Kuroo’s, more intriguing. 

Kuroo finds he’s glad the universe brought them together - or whatever this whole hearing Kenma’s songs in his head means.

“Where do you want to go from here?” Kenma asks quietly after they’ve settled into a comfortable silence for a minute or so. “I mean, if you want, we don’t have to see each other again. I can try and sing less so it won’t bother you or whatever.” 

“It’s not really a bother,” Kuroo says, glancing down at the table, embarrassed. “I… really like your singing, actually.”

Kenma sits fully still for a moment before he glances back up at Kuroo. “So what do you want?”

Kuroo starts speaking before he can build up the good sense to stop himself. “Honestly, I’m not sure,” he admits. “But, well, my life has been a lot. A lot of chaos, of change, of moving, and you’re - well, your voice - is the only thing that’s stayed constant for all these years. I never even imagined you might be out there, and now that you’re here, you’re just - you’re even better than I’d imagined. I don’t know about you, but I really get the feeling that we were destined to be together in some form. Maybe not soulmates, but…” He exhales. “I don’t know. Something like… maybe we can make each other better.” He looks up again, his cheeks coloring. “Shit. Sorry, that was a lot. Sometimes I ramble. But I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to stop seeing you.”

Kenma doesn’t make eye contact. He sits, frozen, for a moment, and Kuroo contemplates if Kenma even heard him when Kenma finally says, “I don’t want to stop seeing you either.”

“Oh. Well, that’s great then,” Kuroo says, his chest filling with warmth. He grins at Kenma, who smiles back, and for a split second, it feels like the clouds have dispersed and the sun is shining through. It feels like everything is right in the world - because Kenma is here, right by Kuroo’s side, and in this moment it’s all Kuroo needs. 

“I’m on tour a lot, though,” Kenma responds. “I’m always traveling. And I don’t have a lot of free time, and I’m not one of those people that’s really social, and I don’t really go to parties -”

“That’s all completely fine with me,” Kuroo interrupts before Kenma can keep going. “Don’t underestimate yourself. Everything you’ve told me so far, I’ve really, really enjoyed. I think… I think what I’m finding is that it’s all fine with me as long it’s you.”

Kenma looks hesitant for a second. Then he gets up, though, and, making his way over to Kuroo, presses a light kiss to Kuroo’s cheek - a kiss that feels like a promise, a “ _ you’ve got me”.  _ Kuroo’s smile only gets bigger. 

“Hey, can I request something?” Kuroo asks. 

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Kenma says, still looking a bit embarrassed, like he’d been too daring. He sits back down in his chair. “What’s up?” 

“Can you sing me a lullaby tonight?”

“Hm,” Kenma says, his cheeks turning an even darker shade of red, but then he gives a hesitant nod. “I guess so. Just… text me when you’re about to go to sleep and I’ll start singing or whatever.”

Kuroo’s face splits into another grin. God, he thinks, and makes a mental note to thank Bokuto for dragging him for Kenma’s show. He can’t wait to spend the next few months getting to know this guy. 

Or, maybe, just maybe, if the universe had been correct...

Maybe the rest of his life. 

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas to the lovely [Robin](https://twitter.com/hana_shi_)!!  
> I'm your Secret Santa this year, and I'm here to present you with my humble Soulmate AU offering! I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and I truly hope you enjoy this!!! Please let me know if you have an AO3 account and I would be happy to gift it to you also <3   
> To all the rest of you, I hope you enjoy this, and please do leave a comment if you did! It would mean the world to me!!  
> Special shoutout to Teddy for beta reading this for me, I appreciate it so much!!


End file.
